


The Lost Knight and His King

by Winterstar



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Asgard, Hurt Tony Stark, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Soul Bond, The Nine Realms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-08
Updated: 2017-09-08
Packaged: 2018-12-25 08:45:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12032307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winterstar/pseuds/Winterstar
Summary: As King of the Nine Realms and the outer cosmos, Tony Stark hides the fact he's never bonded, never found his soul mate. His secret is revealed when the Decay sets in - when he starts to die because of his fractured soul. Could a fairy tale save him? Is that even possible? Or is he doomed to decay, desiccate, and die in a husked out body?The final square of my Cap-Ironman bingo card (the free square so I did soul mates).





	The Lost Knight and His King

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoy this story. I put together story that focuses on soul mates because I hadn't written the trope in a while. Everyone needs a soul mate story once in a while, right? This is an alternate reality where Tony rules Asgard, but is not Asgardian!

Tony waited as his valet adjusted the mantle of his cloak. The thick white fur speckled with darker hairs from the wolves of Asgard lined his shoulders and draped down his back. The cape of the cloak itself was gold with red embellishments. The medals hung around his neck indicated his position, High King of the Realms. 

It had been years since Odin fell and Asgard was laid waste. Thor and his soul mate left the Realms in search of a promise of redemption. No one heard from him in decades. Soul mates ended up being the wreck and ruin of all societies as far as Tony was considered. Soul mates were linked to the cause the ancient wars like the Fall of Troy, and even more modern ones. He never put much thought into soul mates until he became king and the Lord and Knights started to get uneasy about his lack of one. They worried about the ability of the Realms to stay strong, keep their integrity, and defend against Titans and other gods of the heavens. He told them he had one once, but his soul mate died. They wanted proof and he showed them the scars on his chest. The scar horrified each and every one of the Lords and Ladies of the Realms, Knights went to their knees in sight of it. The idea that someone would survive the death of a soul mate, one that would leave such a scar both terrified and astonished them.

Too bad it was a lie. 

A lie he intended no one to ever find out. Not even his closest confidant, Sir James Rhodes. Tony accepted the crown of High King a decade ago. He had suffered abduction and near death because of the Regent of the Realms, Obadiah betrayed Tony and tried to get him killed. None of it worked, because in the end Tony was smarter, more cunning, and ultimately harder to kill than Stane believed. Tony dispatched with Stane’s head when he’d escaped the dungeons of Stane’s Ten Rings estates. He also rounded up all of his loyal men and women (the children not of age were saved) and forced them to either bend the knee or face death. Most bent the knee. He hated to kill without justification, but he didn’t like the idea of getting his throat slit in the middle of the night either. Killing them instead of packing them away into a cell seemed to be the lesser of two evils for the men and women. The worst part about it was that Tony grew up with some of them. That hurt. But as a ruler, he needed to be firm and committed to going through with his threats. Ultimately many soul mates died together in the gallows that summer. Though it was behind him, it still haunted Tony and he paid the repercussions for it time and again.

Even now the outlands on Earth rebelled because of an uprising led by Aldrich Killian, a no nothing lord with meager holdings on the Origin World. If he didn’t squash that revolt things could get ugly and the Parliament might start an inquiry about his soul mate status. Apparently soul mates made a person stronger and, as many said, more alive, kept them healthy and the threat of the Decay away. He thought it was a bunch of hooey, though Rhodey had explained it was not the case long before Tony had been abducted. When he returned Rhodey asked him one quiet night as they watched the stars from the balcony in his palace if he understood now what it meant to be alive.

At first Tony almost questioned him, almost exposed the lie, but then he quickly recovered and said, “Yes, I understand. I don’t think about it now, at all. How can I with Yinsen gone?”

Rhodey hadn’t delved any deeper into the story. It wasn’t considered polite conversation to quiz someone on the loss of a soul mate. Or how it felt to have half of your living being ripped away. Some said it was like losing an arm or a leg. Phantom echoes followed broken soul mates until their death. Rarely did they find another who could fill that gap. Most succumbed to depression, anxiety, even madness. Many died isolated and inconsolable. 

Many in the Realm expressed surprise when Tony functioned so well. They took it as a sign that he was able to show such strength and power as an individual not mated. It solidified his right to the Throne. No one questioned that part of his inheritance, though many worried that because he wasn’t fully alive he couldn’t truly understand the concerns of the mated, the fully alive people of the world. He had to check himself many times not to tell them it was a bunch of ridiculous superstitions. In truth he didn’t know. He couldn’t confide in his friends, though once while in his lab that he kept in the palace he talked with the Royal Alchemist, Bruce. Bruce had been linked to Betty but the bond broke, though he wouldn’t (or couldn’t) confess how the tragedy happened. 

Tony asked Bruce how he felt about his life now.

“You know how it is. Once I knew the meaning of the stars and now I know nothing but the meaning of the darkness,” Bruce quoted an old song about the death of a soul mate.

“That’s morose, Bruce. Tell me really how it is for you?” Tony said. He was the king he could command it, but he wouldn’t. It wasn’t right. No one pried, but Tony.

Bruce hadn’t looked at Tony while he spoke instead he seemed to lose himself in the sky outside the window. “You know Tony. Don’t make me say it. Don’t make me relive it. It – I’m angry now all the time that I let it happen. I might not seem it, but that’s all I feel like. I feel like a raging monster. That’s all. There’s nothing right about me anymore.”

“That’s not true,” Tony said. “You don’t need a soul mate to be whole.”

“Maybe in some other universe you don’t, but that’s not how are soul energy is made. We are designed to pair up. Like protons and electrons. Opposites and perfectly balanced at the same time,” Bruce had said as he shook his head. “North and South. All that and more. That’s what we were made to do.”

“Then how is it that it isn’t a biological imperative? Why doesn’t it have something to do with proliferation? Why is it so random?” 

“Is it?” A melancholy came over him. “It might not have anything to do with proliferation but it has everything to do with survival. If we don’t pair up, if we don’t care enough to pair up where does that leave us? It’s part of the human condition.”

“I think you make too much of it.”

“It’s not about emotional or physical love, Tony,” Bruce explained. “It’s about finding a place in the human condition. It doesn’t have to be a lover but it has to be that you love. That’s it. Understanding humanity, mating to another soul is our way to being part of something grander than ourselves. It’s about accepting your place in society.”

Tony stepped up to the window and said, “Well, as King, I suppose than it’s good I am not bound by the laws of soul mates anymore. My place in society is different than everyone else’s.”

“Is it?”

Bruce had left it at that, and Tony didn’t inquiry further. He knew he was dancing a balancing act on a thin beam. He might just tumble off and Bruce would guess his secret. As an individual in a universe where soul energy paired, he spent most of his youth and his young adulthood aching inside, hoping to find the proton to his electron. Most were bonded and paired by the time they were in their early twenties. Tony celebrated his fortieth birthday. 

It didn’t matter, he had other worries to concern himself with. The fate of the Realms sat on his shoulders. Even if he felt weaker, less steady every day as the years grew. When the knock on the door came, he thanked his valet and answered it himself. Rhodey invited himself in and waited until Jarvis left before addressing Tony. “We have a problem.”

“And what’s that?” Tony checked the mirror as he spoke. He had audience today. Many of the commoners came to ask for favors from the crown, most of which he tried to grant. He adjusted his collar as he spoke. No need for anyone to see the lines on his neck – the black ones. They called it the Decay. His soul energy was failing. He hadn’t told anyone, not really. Jarvis knew. But his valet always remained mum about his secrets. Jarvis had practically raised him, the absenteeism of his parents was legendary. 

“Well it looks like Doom is going to go for another round of it, plus Strange wants to have another discussion about Dormammu.” Rhodey stood to the side of Tony’s dressing table.

“Oh fun, always nice to discuss weird extra-dimensional bad guys who want to suck all the life out of the Realms. What is it about Earth that attracts them?” Tony buckled on his gauntlets. He didn’t go anywhere without them, he didn’t care if his robe hid them. 

“Maybe the beaches and the beautiful surf? Who knows? We need to get him to the palace and discuss the situation. Thanos is another issues entirely.” Rhodey frowned. “If Thor had stuck around maybe all of the Nine Realms and the rest of the cosmos would be in better order. Where ever he went he’s not coming back.”

“Did we ask him to?” Tony shook his head. “I think not.” He tugged at his collar again and that’s when Rhodey noticed.

“What? Tony, what is that?” Rhodey leaned closer and plucked his high collar down to see the black markings on his throat. “It’s the Decay, isn’t it?”

“It’s nothing is what it is,” Tony responded, but it didn’t matter. The look in Rhodey’s eyes, the sorrow, the pity hit Tony square in the chest, ate up the goodwill between them. Tony lashed out. “It’s nothing. I have it under control.”

“Under control? You’re in Decay. People who’ve had-.” He stopped then as every single damned thing dawned on him at once. Reality shifted around them and the power balance in the room tilted until it looped and swung around Tony. He swallowed back his vertigo as Rhodey said, “You were never bonded.”

Tony closed his eyes. “Don’t. It isn’t what you think.” Which was a blatant lie. But what else could he do?

“I think it’s Decay and I think you’ve never had a soul mate. Correct me if I’m wrong, Tony?” Rhodey stood there with his dignity and the scar on the back of his hand from the touch of his soul mate. The words dissipated for Tony, because in the end while he could play the game he couldn’t outright deny the facts. “So, you never bonded with this mysterious Yinsen?”

“Don’t,” Tony said. Yinsen was a very real man, a man who Tony desperately respected and deeply admired. “He was a prisoner, like I was. He was a good man.”

“But never your soul mate?” Rhodey said. His words were quiet.

“No. His soul mate had died years ago. I didn’t know. He never spoke of anyone until the end when he helped me escape and he died in my arms. I wished he could have been. He made me a better man,” Tony confessed and the truth of the words slammed into him, breaking apart his resolve, letting loose the emotions of a decade ago. “He didn’t deserve to die.”

“Neither did you,” Rhodey said. “Why did you lie? Why did you say you had a soul mate?”

Tony pulled away from Rhodey. “Does it matter? I’m forty Rhodey. People like me die when the soul energy can’t be fed. It’s what happens.”

“So why did you lie?”

Tony closed his eyes and tried not to remember the horror of his abduction. He didn’t want to call back those nightmares, those night terrors. “Does it matter now?”

“Maybe not, but I’d like to know,” Rhodey said and his words were not unkind. Rhodey had a tendency to be very protective of Tony, but at the same time he was a knight pledged to protect the Realm. It was his duty to strike down those who would threaten it, or weaken it. 

“It’s simple really,” Tony said and then gazed at his friend. “After what I saw, I knew I needed to ensure the safety of the Realm. I couldn’t do that if people thought I was a singleton. They couldn’t possibly believe that I could exist without the energy signature of my soul mate. So I made it so that the lie or the fantasy became the truth.”

“And the scars on your chest?” Rhodey asked. His concentration bore into Tony like a hot drill. 

“Obie did it to me,” he said and squeezed his eyes shut trying to forget those hot drill bits. The way that Stane’s men tied him down, used the drill to pierce through his sternum again and again. Just enough to split it, just enough to cause such agony, such misery. It shook him, reverberated along his bones, left nothing of him but a dried husk of life. “It doesn’t matter. The soul scar is supposed to be the moment when your life begins, when everything seems crystal clear for the first time in forever. Well, this was my moment. My moment of truth. I saw everything as they drilled into me, pierced my sternum.” The bone pain still plagued him today. “I knew my purpose. And I survived to make it the truth. How is that any different than the moment of a soul bond?”

Rhodey stared at him, mouth agape. He slowly shook his head. “No, I suppose it isn’t much different.”

“Maybe, just maybe, some of us are different.”

Rhodey said nothing, but did go to the sideboard and poured himself a drink. “How, how have you survived this long?”

Tony only lifted a shoulder. “I don’t know.” Forty was ancient if the soul bond hadn’t taken effect. “Maybe I just had too much arrogance and was too stubborn for death to finally take me.”

Rhodey walked over to him then and lightly peeled back his collar. He winced at the etched dark markings all along Tony’s neck and down to his chest. “Does it hurt?”

“A little, it will get worse once the Decay really sets in,” Tony said. “But luckily I’ve been working on some things to stop it. It isn’t much, but-.” Tony pushed aside the thick furs, and then untied his tunic to show Rhodey the implant in his chest. “It’s what I call an arc reactor. It’s a tiny beacon, like a balance for my soul signature. It stabilizes me.”

“Lord, Tony, how is that even-.” Rhodey bent down to inspect the device. It shined a tiny blue light and pulsed. “How is that even attached?”

“Directly, funny enough I opened up the holes that Stane’s men left me and used that to feed the energy pulse into my chest. It balances out the signal and like magic I’m still here.” Tony tapped on the reactor in his chest. It hurt like a son of a bitch, but it kept him ticking and that was all that counted.

“So why the Decay now?” Rhodey said as his attention turned back to the black patterns creeping up Tony’s throat.

“It’s failing. At some point I knew it would happen,” Tony said with a shrug. If he kept the feelings at arm’s distance, it meant he didn’t have to deal with them and the inevitable might never come. “It can’t stabilize the energy signature forever. The soul signature oscillates and changes with age. I can’t get it to harness enough power to rectify the situation.”

“You say it like it’s happening to someone else, not you, not the King,” Rhodey said. “You’ve been King for a decade Tony. This thing in your chest – you’ve had it in there for how long? And now we’re going to lose you at this juncture. The Killian Betrayal and the Chitauri incursions – we need you more than ever now.” The consternation wasn’t unexpected, but the genuine worry might have been. “The Realms need you.”

“They’ll have me for a while longer,” Tony said but cannot add how long. The arc reactor could only simulate a soul pairing for so long. As Tony aged the needs of the soul escalated and the arc reactor – no matter how much Tony modified it – would fail eventually. He closed up the tunic and adjusted the mantle of his royal cape. “Now Audience chamber ready?”

Rhodey jerked as if taken off guard by the quick change in subject. “Yes it is, but I have something more pressing to talk to you about, though, first.” 

“What would that be?” 

“The Knights Order of Shield would like an audience with you,” Rhodey stated but he kept his expression neutral. The Knights Order was not part of the Royal Knights, but instead a more secretive group. They pledged allegiance to no one. Through their machinations, they turned the wheel of time and manipulated life throughout the Realm and the wider cosmos. He didn’t trust them, but he had to deal with them because they were allies. “When?”

“As soon as possible. There’ve been developments,” Rhodey said. “Some which I understand from my contacts within their ranks might change the balance of power throughout the Realms and cosmos.”

“If they are talking about the Guardians of the Galaxy again, I am not interested. I spoke with Starlord, he’s got Rocket under control or kind of under control again. There shouldn’t be any more underhanded thefts.” Bothering with the Guardians and their antics always rankled him. While he enjoyed a good party with Quill, he would like it if they stayed out of detector range and left the rest of the Realms in peace. 

Rhodey stopped Tony before he could brush him off. “I’m sorry, your majesty, it isn’t as simple as the Guardians. From what I understand, the Lost Knight has returned.”

Tony froze. His heart stilled in his chest and, for a blink of a second, a jolt of unbridled excitement and warmth streamed through him as if his energy signature called out to a missing part of its self. Once the moment ended, he staggered a bit and he would have fallen had Rhodey not been there to steady him.

“My King?” 

Tony only shook his head but found his way to a chair in the lounge area of his bed chambers. His body shivered and quaked as if he was out in the wilds, cold and naked. He hadn’t heard the story of the Lost Knight since childhood. His Aunt Peggy would tell it with a wistful air about her. It was rumored she knew him. She loved him. The Lost Knight saved the Realms from massive evil plot by the Red Skull, vanquished the villain. While he saved the Realms, he’d been lost due to the Tesseract. It consumed the Knight it was said. The reality shifting cube devoured the knight as he sacrificed himself to right the wrongs of the Red Skull. 

“Tony?” Rhodey asked.

Shadows darkened the room as if clouds covered the sky outside the windows. Tony forced himself to focus, forced the agony in his soul to disperse. But it wouldn’t. The arc reactor stuttered like a dying vehicle. “Drink, get me drink.” He managed only that before the shadows of his plight filtered out the hope for the future. He heard Rhodey pouring the drink from the bar near the window. When Rhodey handed it to him, Tony drank it down like an animal in the desert without a water source. But it wasn’t water that he wanted, though that’s what Rhodey had given to him. He tossed it aside.

“I said a drink, I wanted a drink,” Tony said and got up, found his legs would carry him to the bar and grabbed the bourbon. He thought about pouring it, for a millisecond, but then just opened the bottle and guzzled it. Rhodey’s hands were on the bottle, yanking it away.

“Stop, stop,” Rhodey said.

Tony gagged and then all of the bourbon sputtered out of his mouth. He vomited into the empty ice bucket on the bar. His whole body rebelled and he quaked. Rhodey stood by him, hand on his back. Wheezing, Tony heaved in a breath as he drooled the last of the alcohol into the bucket. Again, Rhodey offered him a glass of water and this time Tony accepted it with gratitude. He drank it down and then accepted the napkin Rhodey offered to him. Wiping his mouth and tearing eyes, he nodded his thanks.

“Thank you. I’m sorry. I can be an ass sometimes.”

“Everyone knows that,” Rhodey said but concern laced his voice. “What’s this? What’s happening Tony?”

He could only guess. “The arc reactor must be failing again. I can fix it, don’t worry,” Tony replied but the truth was he’d never had an episode like this. Sure, once in a while he would judder and shake with its failure. Once in a while he would need to sit down. But never like this as if his body was rejecting it. “I’ll fix it. It’ll take no time at all.” He reassured his friend, but mostly himself. 

Rhodey eyed him. “Are you sure you want to do the open audience today?”

“Yes, just please give me a few minutes.”

Rhodey nodded. “I’ll get the chambers prepared.”

Tony agreed and then his friend left. Tony found his way to his bed and sank down on it. His joints loosened like that of a puppet. He felt twisted and braided. He didn’t know if he could get back up. What happened to him? The reactor never did this to him. Never. It worked and worked silently. A few tweaks along the way any time it felt off – but never did it seize up. 

“The Lost Knight,” he whispered and remembered the stories of the Lost Knight. His Aunt Peggy would hold him in her arms. Her smile sweet and tender as she would rock him in the old chair in his nursery room. 

“The Knight comes now, at night. He comes and protects all the children of the Realm.”

“Does he protect them from everything?” Tony had asked.

“Yes, darling dear, everything.”

Tony wished then, on the stars outside that the Knight would protect him from the harsh words of his father. How his father belittled him, how his father told him he was worthless and weak. How his father told him that he would never live up to the Lost Knight. Tony remembered as a child standing in the grand hallway with his knight’s outfit on and his father with a tumbler of drink laughing at him. His mother tried to shush him, but that wouldn’t stop his father.

“Pathetic, isn’t he?” his father would say and his mother would only look mournfully at the two of them. She cried often in the late night – Tony heard her. 

Maybe that’s why Tony loved it when Aunt Peggy came to visit. She had been part of the Knights Order of Shield. She’d founded it. Though she didn’t become a knight herself, she was one of the leaders. He loved to sit in her arms and listen to her stories of the Knights, but especially the Lost Knight. Until he grew older and harder and realized that the Lost Knight and the tales she told of him protecting children were only tales, fantasies of a woman that lost her love. The Lost Knight hadn’t been her soul mate, but she still loved him. Everyone who knew the Lost Knight had. But in his teenaged years, Tony resented the Lost Knight. That he wasn’t some fantasy savior – betrayal bubbled up in Tony. The stories were false and all he wanted was the truth.

The truth was simple. The Lost Knight killed the Red Skull and saved the Realms. The Tesseract ate both of them, leaving only dust and ice. He’d saved the Realms but left the rest of them to rebuild.

Why did it affect him so much now? An old tale, a child’s fantasy of protection. And now he was in fourth decade and still it brought the heat of excitement and the chill of terror to his heart. The terror grew from uncertainty, the loss, the pain. It hurt so desperately in his chest that he thought he might vomit again. He curled up in a ball on the bed. Just this morning he was fine, perfectly fine. Just minutes ago, he was fine. The holes in his chest, the memories of his abduction beat a new rhythm of pain. But it didn’t truly feel like physical pain, it felt like something torn away from him forever was achingly close and he still couldn’t reach it. 

“It’s nothing, I’m being an asshat,” he said and pushed up only to have the room spin around him, his whole sense of self disrupted. Catastrophic failure. That’s what was happening. Moaning, he stumbled out of bed with his hand to his chest. The arc reactor was failing, and his whole body screamed for its missing part – its proton to his electron. Staggering he made it to the side table. He needed help but he dare not ask Rhodey. Rhodey will know – know that he was dying. 

He grasped the bell and rung it. In seconds, Jarvis stepped into his room. 

“Sir!” Jarvis raced to his side and helped him to a chair. 

“It’s happening Jarvis.”

“The arc reactor? What has saved your life is now killing you? Jarvis asked. The mournful tone, the empathy in his expression tore a little piece out of Tony. Jarvis and his soul mate always wanted to have child – they never could and they nearly adopted Tony. They fostered him, raised him more than his own parents. 

“Yes, yes, I need-.” He didn’t know what he needed. He needed his damned soul mate. But that wasn’t to be. “Get my tools from the workshop. The tablet and the energy signature stabilizer. Do you know which ones those are?”

“I can have DUM-e help me,” Jarvis assured him. “I can’t leave you here like this.”

“Yes you can, go,” Tony said and gave him a shove. It was pathetic and weak but Jarvis didn’t hesitate. He rushed out of the bed chambers. Cold sweat dripped down Tony’s back and he covered his face with his hand because the light from the windows hurt his eyes. This was exactly the wrong moment for this to happen. If he could survive this – then he had to name an heir, prepare them for the future. Pepper was a good choice. She’d been with him for years. She would do well as the Queen. Her soul mate, Happy, while not the best choice for a king, would make an excellent husband and supporter for her. 

When Jarvis returned with the supplies, it only took seconds for him to help Tony with his clothes and get the arc reactor out of its port on Tony’s chest. Dislodged the base of the arc reactor resembled something out of a horror story. The prongs that held the electrodes were pointed and serrated so that they would stay fitted in the grooves. The electrodes glimmered in the light, but Tony ignored them as he popped open the front of the reactor. His hands trembled as he worked as sweat poured from his brow. A creeping sensation came over his neck and back as if the Decay modeling his skin accelerated. 

He kept his mind on the problem at hand. Tony was good at that, distracting himself from the dire with the smallest technical problem served him well over the years. He connected the reactor to the tablet and then ran through the diagnostics. It showed good stability – nothing wrong. There wasn’t much he could do. Terror prickled over him; it wasn’t the arc reactor – not anymore. It was Tony. His body, his soul was failing. There was nothing to it, he couldn’t stabilize it anymore. It had always been a surprise he could do it this long. 

Keeping his expression like stone, Tony played a little with the arc reactor as Jarvis kneeled before him and watched him work. After a time that seemed adequate, Tony snapped everything back together and tried to look satisfied. “That’s it then, let’s put it back.”

Sorrow paled Jarvis’ cheeks. He dropped his gaze and nodded. He knew. Tony could never fool him. “Do you want me to cancel the audience today?”

It would probably be for the best. He didn’t have long and he needed to make preparations to ensure the health and welfare of the Realms. “Yes, reschedule it for next week. Give everyone who came from afar a free stay in the city. Make sure everyone is well taken care of. Also, bring Pepper to my rooms. I need to speak with her.”

Without a word, Jarvis helped Tony get the arc reactor back in place and then tidied up his clothes. Tony climbed to his feet and Jarvis removed the finery, allowing Tony to stay in his trousers and tunic only. Once Jarvis left, Tony padded across the floor in his bare feet and went to his old chest that he kept in the bed chamber of his suite. He unlocked it with the signet of his ring and then pulled open the chest. 

Amongst all the childhood toys Tony found his book. It was old, ancient by many terms. But he still loved it. It wasn’t actually an antique but something that Aunt Peggy had handmade for him for one of his birthdays. His father had scoffed at the gift, but Tony had loved it. He remembered opening the box and the thrill that pulsed through him felt like a living thing. Mouth open, stunned and joyous, he thanked Aunt Peggy with a hug. She nearly toppled over as he embraced her around the waist, laying his head against her. He was all of eight at the time. She stroked his hair and told him to read it. One day he would understand. 

He did. He read it again and again. It was the story of a boy, a thin rail of a boy who grew up in the tough part of a city on the Origin World. Sickness plagued him. The poverty surrounding him left him malnourished and hungry for better. He stood up for what was right and good and true. His mother told him to always stand up, always get back up. He would stand up to the bullies in the neighborhood, defending other children who were bigger, stronger, and healthier than him. The Skull Wars changed all that. The book turned darker then, a story of heroism in the face of chilling odds. He remembered how terrified he’d been as a boy reading the Rebirth part of the story. How could anyone be so very brave? When there was always a chance of failure, death, or worse? But the boy became a paragon, a Knight and fought the Red Skull. He changed everything. He won the war and the Realms were safe.

His fingers quaked as he touched the words from so long ago. His father might have laughed and scowled. His mother might have patted him and patronized. But the book told him something nothing else had. Standing up for what was right, for others could save the world. He loved that book. 

And now the Lost Knight had returned. His wrist burned as if a hot brand hit it. He hissed at the strange sensation. He flexed his fingers as they tingled. He really should rest, he had no idea how long he actually had left. It might be an hour, it could be a day, it might be a month. He needed to prepare. He tucked the book away and then rang for Jarvis, telling him to have Pepper come to him. Before Jarvis left, he convinced Tony to get into bed and then rang for tea service. 

When Pepper arrived, Jarvis brought tea and sandwiches for the both of them. It seemed all so civilized. Her expression told him worlds – she knew he was feeling ill – though not why. 

Before she could say anything, he put his hands up and said, “I didn’t go on a bender.”

“I didn’t say you did.” She sat by his bed. Her hands folded in her lap, her eyes bright.

“You had that look.”

“I don’t have a look.”

“Sure you do,” Tony said and then stopped her protest. “Are we done now?” 

She frowned at him but rolled her eyes and gave him the floor.

“I want you to be my heir,” Tony stated. There wasn’t any reason to beat around the bush about this. He needed to get things done. Getting steps accomplished would lighten the load and decrease the stress. Plus his fears, his memories of the abduction threatened now that he returned to his past this morning. 

Predictably, Pepper stared at him with mouth open and eyes wide. Then she made a little huh noise and muttered incoherently until she finally managed to say, “What?”

“You heard me, I need an heir. You’re it. I trust you, you know what you’re doing. I know that Rhodey would support you and be a great First Knight.” Tony tried to remain as impartial as possible. He didn’t want the warmth filling him, that love he’d always had for Pepper to threaten to break free now. 

“I’m honored, Tony, I am. But I’m not royalty?” She furrowed her brows and tilted her head as if she tried to tease out a different purpose.

“Neither was I when I took the throne. Odin disappeared, Thor and his soul mate as well. On a quest that may last a thousand years. Thor put me a on the throne. I didn’t want it, but I tried to do my best,” Tony said with a shrug. “I need you to do what I did and accept this burden.”

“Tony, this isn’t the best – I-.”

“Do as your king asks,” Tony said and let the weight of his words drop through the air like lead through water.

She stopped hesitating and simply agreed. They spoke for several more minutes. He assured her that things would be fine. That he had plans for the future. Finally he confessed the real reason for his request.

“I’m dying.”

She startled when she heard that but remained firmly planted in the seat. “Do- do the doctors know what’s wrong?”

“No need to call the doctors,” Tony said and revealed the signs of Decay on his throat. “I have Decay. I never was bonded and now I can’t hide it much longer. I don’t know how much time-.”

She wept openly. Her eyes large and luminous as she trembled through her tears. “No, Tony, no. We’ve been through so much. So much. I can’t accept this.” Abruptly she sprung to her feet. “Bruce, Bruce will know what to do.”

“He won’t. I did what I could all these years to hold it off. But now, it’s done. I don’t know how much time I have, so you have to be here. You have to learn as much as possible now,” Tony said and offered his hand. 

She clasped it as she sobbed. “Please, let me talk to Bruce about it.”

“I have it all planned.” He might not have all the pieces in place, but Tony always knew it would come down to this – always knew that not having a soul mate would damn him one day. He might shun the idea of it, think a lot of the modern day cultural norms are a lot of superstitions, but the fact remained, his energy signature could not be stabilized without his soul mate. 

She stood next to the bed, clutching his hand. “I feel so helpless. This isn’t what you wanted, you know. I didn’t want to have this.”

“I know,” Tony said. “You were always going to be my heir, Pepper. You and Happy will make a good Queen and Consort. Happy even remembers what you’re allergic to.”

She laughed a little but tears overcame her again and she put both hands to her face, crying. 

“It’s okay.” But it wasn’t and it never would be again. Later, after she left, Tony eased himself down into the bed and rested. He couldn’t believe how weak he felt. The energy signature, the arc reactor mustn’t be working to balance it anymore. That’s the only thing he could think. When he found rest, it filled him with dread and foreboding. 

In his dream as he stood in a field of glass, the cold wind hit him. It turned his face to stone and his eyes to crystals. But then he understood, that no it was not him, but some other part of him. Closed and frozen, paralyzed and kept, he could not move. He’d become this solid mass, this thing. Yet, he wasn’t there. He flowed through it, and became more than the slab of time; he became reality. The glass around him melted and he saw nothing but the stars – he ached to touch them but when he did, the landscape around him shifted, grew darker and colder still. 

The cold seeped into every molecule, it contaminated his bones, hollowed him out and yet his soul signature, his energy pulsed as if searching, endlessly seeking home. It wasn’t the physical pain, but the separation from self, from that one truth, that one part of him that he knew existed Elsewhere. No matter. It didn’t matter. He couldn’t touch it so the winter of his soul spread. It transformed him. His soul bled, but only ice and snow fell from him.

Shivering, Tony awoke curled into a ball on his grand bed. He fumbled and found his way to the lamp. He turned it on, though it was still mid-day. He couldn’t parse his dream, but he still quivered though he’d piled on the quilts. He rang for more tea. When Jarvis came to deliver it, his face drained of all color.

“My King.” It was all Jarvis had to say. Tony knew – the Decay had spread, encompassing not only his chest and the base of his neck, but further up.

“How far?”

Jarvis placed the tray on the table. “It isn’t bad, my lord.”

“How far?” Tony asked again. He swallowed hard because he couldn’t stop shivering, he couldn’t stop the feeling of falling, descending, disappearing. 

“To your jawline and more, sir,” Jarvis said and served him the tea. 

Tony blinked away the fear, and the tears. It wouldn’t do to cry. But he had nothing else to feel. He’d tried to be a good man, to take on the burden of governing, to help the Realms become something more. He couldn’t meet Jarvis’ gaze. He stared down at his useless body, his failing soul. “I tried, I wanted to give so much more. But I can’t. You know I had hopes. I wanted to change things. Make things better. I wanted to build a shield around the Realms and keep it safe. But I can’t, I can’t do anything without him.”

“Him?” Jarvis puzzled.

“My soul mate, I know it sound ridiculously naïve, but it’s a him. I know it. I’ve known it forever,” Tony said as he thought of the book Aunt Peggy gave him. 

“So there is one?” Jarvis asked and settled into the chair that Pepper had pulled up to the bed.

Tony smiled ruefully. “You remember that book that Aunt Peggy gave me when I was eight? Just a silly thing. About the Lost Knight?”

I remember it well. You read it a dozen times,” Jarvis commented and looked so much like the proud father that Tony always wanted.

“I always imagined it would be someone like him. Someone strong and confident and willing to-.”

Jarvis reached over and touched Tony’s hand. “To protect you from your father.”

Tony didn’t look up instead he stared at the hand laying on top of his own. If in death he missed anyone, he thinks he will miss the ever steady presence of Jarvis. “Be there for Pepper after I’m gone.”

“Your majesty,” Jarvis whispered.

The next days only became more painful, slower and hideous. The Decay began to settle into his body like a plague of locusts eating away at his strength and his lucidity. He spent too many hours blank and lacking. When he climbed into himself, he spent the hours with Pepper trying to get her updated. He also worked on his arc reactor, hoping he could save himself. But the more he tried, the weaker he became until at night he barely kept warm and he lie in bed starting out into the glass field and knowing it was a delusion of his fevered brain. 

As the end approached, Jarvis came to him. He took care of Tony as he might his own child. His face grim, but his determination resolved and firm. Tony had never been as grateful as he was when Jarvis hovered over him, helping him dress, feeding him. 

“I must be such a disappointment.”

“Nonsense,” Jarvis said as he spooned some soup into Tony’s mouth. “I have never been so proud. When the Realm needed someone, you stepped up and saved it. You have proven yourself worthy.”

“Must have been a surprise. I was always such a little asshole,” Tony said as Jarvis wiped his face. 

“Sometimes,” Jarvis replied and his words were not unkind. He smiled at Tony and it meant the world. “I only wish you had found that special someone to pair with.”

“Don’t worry about me, Jarvis,” Tony said and he tried to pull one of his arrogant remarks out, but even his wit failed him. All he could muster was a simple, “Don’t worry.”

Jarvis would and Tony couldn’t stop it. As the Decay settled into his chest, into his organs, into his bones, his body folded and collapsed in on itself until he could barely breathe or function. He couldn’t move his body much anymore, he couldn’t lift his hand more than a millimeter off the bed. Working out a solution to the arc reactor failure was a moot point. He would be dead soon enough. The Decay would turn him into ash, a gray death of pointlessness. His friends were around him. During the night he called out and Jarvis stayed with him as he drifted between life and decay. 

Jarvis read to him, took care of him. Tony clasped the old book about the Lost Knight to his chest and slept like that as his body shivered toward the border – the coming death of his soul. What would be left of his body, he did not want to think. Soulless bodies had to be burned, the ash spread wide so it wouldn’t contaminate the whole and true souls around it.

Lying in his bed, wheezing as he breathed, Tony said goodbye to his friends. Rhodey tried to keep his face stoic, but his eyes told everything. Pepper hugged him and kissed him, she didn’t allow the thought of his Decay to deter her. When they left, Jarvis asked him, “Do you have some strength left?”

His eyes were fogged, his brain thick with death. He only nodded because he would do anything for Jarvis. 

“I have someone for you to meet,” Jarvis spoke quietly. “You might remember that Sir Rhodes reported that the Order of Shield found the Lost Knight. He had been trapped between realities. He’s come now. To pay his respects.”

The Lost Knight. A last request. “Y-yes.”

Jarvis went to the door of the bed chamber and opened the wide dark wood door. Through his bleary vision, a figure emerged like a ray of light through filtering clouds. The figure moved toward him and the hazy blue with silver struck him. Not like a hammer on an anvil, but something more subtle like the beauty of a quiet day, or a good tea, or even the moment of a first kiss. Those days, those moments were only figments now, fragments of someone else’s life.

“Maybe I shouldn’t.” The timbre of the voice sings to Tony in ways that sound did not define. 

“If you could, it would mean the world to him.” Jarvis added, “He is your King.”

“Yes, I’m sorry.” The Knight stepped up to Tony’s bed. His gaze did not waver. He looked at Tony with a kindness in his eyes. “My lord.” And he knelt at the side of Tony’s bed, with his head bowed. 

“Up.” It was the only word Tony could manage through his cracked, dried lips. The word like sand in his mouth, grit against his tongue. 

The Knight hesitated but did get to his feet. “I promise to protect the Realms in your name, my lord.” He tried to stay strong, to show a certain stoicism. “I wish there was something more I could offer you. I understand the Decay well. I’ve had it for many years.”

Jarvis chimed in. “You don’t look as if you have the Decay, Sir.”

“Sir Rogers, Steven Rogers,” the Knight bowed again. “I only wish that the serum that runs through my veins could assist you, my liege.” 

“The serum?” Jarvis asked. He acted in Tony’s stead. “You believe the serum helps you with the Decay?”

The Knight peeled back the collar of his dark navy blue uniform with its silver star in the middle of his chest. “Yes.” He displayed the faintest lines of the Decay on his throat. “For decades. Even while I was lost, it worked.” 

Tony muffled a moan and managed to lift his arm to wave the Knight over to him. Steven leaned down and opened his collar wider. He wanted to smile, he didn’t want anyone to suffer his fate. He was collapsing, his soul signature decomposing as it desiccated his body. He gathered himself as much as he could in his failing state, pulled the words from the gravel in his mouth, and said, “Glad, you survived. Knew your story. Everyone did.”

The Knight blinked his eyes several times. “I only tried to do my best, your majesty. Nothing more. I don’t deserve your kind words. If I could I would give you the serum from my veins. I have heard the stories of your reign.”

“Not so good, at first.” Tony had to admit the truth. At the last of his life, obfuscation would be foolish. “I could ha-have, been. B-better.”

“We all make mistakes,” the Knight said and then as if he realized the implications of what he’s just stated, stuttered to correct it. “I mean, that I make mistakes. I made mistakes.”

Tony managed to arch a brow and said, “Like now?”

The Knight smiled and it as rueful and tender at the same time. “I’m sorry I can’t mend you. I’ve always tried to do the right thing, and I think the right thing would have been saving you.”

The purity of his words warmed Tony and he felt tears trickle down his parched, cracked cheeks. He tasted the salt as they dribbled on his lips. “Story, you can’t be as- as good- as-.” A coughing fit interrupted him, the blood splattered from his lips and Jarvis was there to wipe it away. “Th-the story.”

Steven hung his head and said, “No one is.” He stopped then and added, “I wish I had time to know you better, my king. I wish-.” He reached out to Tony, his hand hovering close but then he remembered himself and pulled away. He bowed once more. “I will protect the Realm in your honor.” 

Tony closed his eyes. He heard Jarvis quietly speaking to the Knight. Jarvis would escort the Lost Knight out and then Tony would slip into sleep. The withering of his soul would be complete and the husk of his body would flake away, blown to ash. Even as he drifted he heard the Lost Knight speaking, “If you could let me have a moment, just a moment with him.”

Pushing through the weight of death Tony forced his eyes open and nodded to Jarvis. His friend and valet hesitated only a moment before acquiescing to his king’s silent command. When he slipped out of the door, the Lost Knight walked over to the bed again. He kept his head bowed as he spoke.

“I want to apologize that I didn’t get here sooner. I tried to break free from the cube, but it captured me and showed me so many different things. Different realities. Possibilities. And, if I may be so bold?” He waited, actually waited, for Tony to signal for him to continue. Once Tony did with only a flicker of his eyes, Steven said, “It showed me a different time, a time I was here for you. I was your Knight, your servant. I protected your Realm.” Steven fell to his knees as he spoke, the weakness evident in his cracking voice. “I was there for you, I was your servant, your-.” He shuddered through a breath. “I was your soul mate, my king. And you, you were mine.” He let out a gasping cry as if he never intended to confess the truth. In a hoarse whisper he said, “You were mine.”

The tears were never ending staining Tony’s face as the Lost Knight acknowledged the realities he lived in the Tesseract. Everything that Tony could have had but never did. He’d denied that he wanted it all those many years. He stayed apart from the expectation, from the wish, from the hope. The reality of loss hit him. All possibilities opened up before him, but only beyond a barrier of time, a barrier too strong to cross. He could not reach them in his debilitated state. 

The Lost Knight climbed to stand. He wavered, ever so slightly, as if the very loss of Tony ate away at his own strength. His shoulders were broad, his arms thick with muscles, but there, underneath it al,l resided a weaker man, a man who would live with a half soul for the rest of his life. “I’m sorry, my king, to be so presumptuous. I shouldn’t be, but I thought you needed to know. That it would be cruel not to know. That I will continue and always will defend your name.” At this he did reach out, tentatively to Tony.

Tony nodded and, with his pathetic strength, lifted up his hand to the Knight. Steven grasped his hand and through the dust of his flesh, Tony felt something beckoning, something warm and living. Steven held onto him, his eyes searching Tony’s ruined features. 

“Do-don’t look.” It’s all Tony could manage. His lips failed him, his motor skills defeated him. His vision blurred and he gasped for breath as the warmth spread, traveling up his arm. 

The Lost Knight never let go. Only grit and dirt remained of Tony, but the Knight held onto him. “I’m not going to let go. I’m here for you.” Steven raised his other hand and lightly caressed the flaking flesh of Tony’s face. “I’ll stay until the end if you need me, if you want me to.”

A legend, a story, a parable- this Knight only resided in Tony’s dreams and nothing more. He couldn’t be alive and hovering over Tony as if to shelter him from the coming darkness. It was a nice dream, a comforting vision to have in his last moments of life. Tony had never been one for fantasies or for magic. He understood the energy signatures of the soul and how it worked. He also knew that it wasn’t magic, just interactions on a subatomic level. Inwardly smirking, he wanted to laugh. Even in these lasting hours, he fell back into the comfort and solace of science. And yet, he longed to be part of his dream his mind had conjured. He yearned to feel the touch of his soul mate, to know what it meant when souls aligned and energy signatures sang together. To be alive.

For once, he allowed it. Allowed the fantasy, the dream. 

The Lost Knight of his childhood leaned over him, his eyes pleading for more yet filled with sorrow of what was already lost. He whispered to Tony, “I’m sorry I failed you.” With the simplest of gestures, he placed his moist, full lips on Tony’s cracked mouth. Struggling, Tony wanted to pull away. Not because he was the King and this man only a lowly Knight who should not have presumed to kiss the King. The taste of blood in his mouth, his splitting lips, his dried skin, the shame of his state overwhelmed Tony. 

The Knight pursued the kiss and Tony gave up any feigning of fighting him. He wanted this, this last parting gift before the grave. And in those final moments, Tony found a certain peace as their energies met, and interwove. The light shredded the darkness he’d held onto for so long, the acceptance spread through him while embracing him at the same time. Their souls – halved and splintered – became a whole living thing. A living pulse of life. Something pure and simple and bright. It blinded Tony in its beauty, it deafened him from all else. He bathed in the purity, in the transcendence of his half life to a whole one, a whole soul. 

He told himself it was only a dead man’s dream, nothing more. But then the Lost Knight hitched a breath and staggered away from Tony. He collapsed to his knees, his body shuddering and then he splayed out his arms. His face, his bare hands turned ashen and gray. Black lines crawled up his features and he arched his head and neck, baring his teeth against the agony. Tony tried to get up, tried to force his body to get out of bed to help Steven – and he found that he could. For the first time in weeks, his legs obeyed him, his legs held him up and then he hobbled over to the Knight as he quaked. The horror continued as each and every line and abuse the Decay had inflicted on Tony mirrored onto Steven, yet in an accelerated fashion. His eyes were blood red, his mouth leaked blood as did his ears and nose. Yet even as the transformation occurred his gray skin warmed and blushed back to life. The cracks and fissures healed, the blood dried, flaking away, and then the Decay faded to completely disappear.

Steven faltered as if weakened by the ordeal. Tony grabbed him, steadied him in his arms and gathered him to his chest. As he held onto Steven, as he embraced him Tony looked down at his own hands only to see perfect skin – no sign of the Decay. Yet there on his hand was the mark of where Steven had first touched him, a mark of his soul bonded. The dust of his flesh had repaired, disappeared as if the serum running through the Lost Knight’s veins ran through his own. It was preposterous, but he couldn’t explain it any other way. 

Tony abandoned trying to understand what had happened and why, instead he comforted the man – his soul mate – in his arms. “We’re good, we’re okay. We’re going to be all right.”

Steven – this Lost Knight – his soul mate – wept in his arms and Tony confessed he found tears staining his face again. His healthy, whole face. Gratitude and joy swept through him like seeing the sun again after the cold of the winter. He buried his face in the Knight’s neck and sobbed. It was the Knight then who comforted Tony. He cupped Tony’s face in his hands and brought their mouths together, the kiss sang through him like the chords of a beloved old song. He might have gripped the Knight too hard, too hungry, but Steven only kissed him harder still. 

“Oh.”

Tony broke away from the Knight and Steven fell back, fumbling to stand as he apologized. Standing at the door to his bed chamber, Jarvis, Pepper, and Rhodey all watched them. 

Tony got to his feet, though his legs were still weak, he saw how healthy and strong he was now. The arc reactor in his chest fizzled and he tore it out, throwing it to the side. “I – I – apparently the Lost Knight, Sir Steven Rogers is my soul mate.”

Jarvis raised a brow. “I can see that.”

Steven stood behind Tony, obviously fidgeting and nervous under the eyes of Tony’s family. 

“Oh and I’m cured, as well!” Tony smiled at them, but Rhodey looked dubious and Jarvis worried. 

Pepper broke the spell. She walked right over to them and offered her hand to Steven. “Thank you, thank you for asking to see him. And thank you for saving him. And welcome to the family.”

Steven nodded, abashedly and sweetly. Even Tony was taken back by his clear shyness in the face of admiration. “Thank you for the welcome, ma’am.”

Pepper only smiled at him and then turned to Tony. “It’s good to have you well again.”

“Yeah, it is.”

She pecked him on the cheek and then turned to the others. “Well?”

Rhodey only crossed his arms and glowered but Jarvis softened his expression. “I’m pleased to see you well again.”

“Thank you and you, sweetcakes?” Tony asked, worried that his friend might find some fault.

But it wasn’t what Tony was concerned about, instead Rhodey focused on Steven and said, “Take care of him, with your life.”

Before Tony intervened, Steven bowed and said, “Yes, I vow to protect him and serve him with my life.”

Rhodey eased up a bit and then Tony said, “Out, please.”

As Jarvis left he said, “I’ll have a breakfast sent up.”

“Make it two,” Tony said but then added. “In an hour or two, please.” As the door closed, Tony smiled at Steven. “I want you to understand, I’m a king but also a man of science. None of this makes sense to me.”

“So you don’t accept it?” Steven asked, a shadow crossed over his expression.

“No, I mean yes I accept it. I can’t dispute the facts. You’re my soul mate, you cured me. But I have to ensure the Realms. I have to govern. You will be by my side,” Tony said. And how he wanted to touch him again, kiss him again. He wanted to be invited to be touched and to touch. “But I want to make sure it is what you want as well?”

The Lost Knight met his gaze and shook his head. “I have been through reality after reality, I’ve experienced times when we were together and times when we were bitter enemies. But every single time, we were soul mates. I can’t understand it, I don’t pretend to, maybe with your science you do. But all I can say is that I have to be here, with you. If you cast me out, I will stand guard outside your door, or palace, where ever I am allowed to stay.” He stepped closer to Tony. “I’ve seen the other possibilities. I want this one.”

Tony stretched out his hand, offered it to the Lost Knight. Steven accepted it and the flow of their synchronized energy signatures pulsed a beat through Tony, breathed a harmony through his lungs, and changed his perceptions.

“Now,” Tony said in a rasp. “Let’s explore.”

The Lost Knight blushed and Tony smiled.

THE END


End file.
